


Composed

by ArtificialWick



Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Character Death, F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, No Romance, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:14:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25649374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtificialWick/pseuds/ArtificialWick
Summary: Realizing how much the songbird means to his daughter, Nathan goes to see Mag. He hopes to convince her to leave, but things turn out differently and not at all how he's planned.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9





	Composed

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a result of a discussing the original script of Repo! The Genetic opera (2002) with Gracethedisasterace; there is a scene in it between Mag and Nathan that had me an emotional mess. I wanted to expand on it so this is what that is. There is borrowed dialogue but the setting and the ending are entirely my own.
> 
> Please note that this is not beta-read. I don't have a beta reader currently and never quite beta my drabbles as they are a sit down and go thing for me personally. Spelling errors might occur, though I try not to make them.

Mag is alone. It is quiet in her quarters and the orange light filtering from outside is ambient enough to resemble candles. She is putting on her overcoat, preparing to leave for the night. Claws already sit idly on both her hands, her mind has already been made up but there's someone she should see before she does what she wants to. Before she makes her final choice.

What she had not expected is for someone to come to her instead. Light but steady footsteps enter from behind her and she is instantly alert, until she fills in the blanks on who those steps belong to. She has not heard them in quite some time. She recognizes his footsteps and acknowledges him before actually seeing him.

“Hi, Nathan.”

It’s the second time that night she’s greeted him like that, except this time she’s aware he’s there. Nathan is instantly on edge, tensing like a cat caught off guard by the deer it had been preying on instead. She sees it reflected in the mirror of her vanity and turns to look at him instead.

“You know I hate it when you do that,” Nathan mumbles, he looks more frazzled than he did a few hours before. Calmer but slightly off. Mag can’t exactly place what it is, but she senses an unease lingering around him. She’s pretty sure he is not even trying to hide it, and if he is he is doing a poor job at it.

“It’s been a long time, but your footsteps haven’t changed.”

This is what he sometimes hates about her. There’s nothing wrong with her memory, nor affinity for sounds of all kinds. The way she reminisces on it, the reminder of how long it’s been. “Stop, I didn’t come here to walk down memory lane. I’ve changed. You know that.”

“Then tell me why you came.” Mag watches as he goes from a timid cat to the stern father she’d last left. His voice was almost unyielding. Had she not known him that well, she would have thought it so. Yet, much like his footsteps she still recognizes the feeling there, he can not keep it from his voice no matter how much he says he has changed.

“You saw Shilo today.”

Mag’s eyes flash a light blue hue in recognition. She’d never forget her face, no matter how little she’s seen her. It’s so familiar and yet so far away from her, a face long gone. “She grows more and more like Marni every day.”

“Stop it!” Nathan tries to get her to stop, he won’t have her remind him of how much Shilo looks like her mother. He cannot live to be confronted with the comparison he makes all the same, every time he looks at his daughter.

“Wake up Nate, she’s grown!”

“Mag, drop it!” She’s raising her voice and he’s raising his to match. It’s the same fire he’d seen in her before, when Mag is set on something she won’t let it go. He knows this.

“Not this time Nathan, Shilo needs to know!”

He protests again, but it is of no use. The soprano in front of him is not at peace with his pleading. “It is the past! Nathan, let it go! She should know! She should-”

He manages to cut her off then. He won’t let her tell him what Shilo should and should not know. Some things are best left alone, it is beyond her control. She should leave it. It is not why he’s here, why are they even discussing this? “That’s not what this is about!”

He pauses and regains his composure. Mag does the same, her face relaxing, the dawning realisation that she’s raised her voice at him.

“You need to leave Sanitarum tonight!” he claims, a shimmer of desperation lacing his voice, genuine concern. “They’ll come for your eyes, Mag. You have no-!”

“I’m not going anywhere!”

He throws his hands in the air in frustration, “are you blind?!”

She chuckles, “soon maybe.”

“Mag, this isn’t funny!” Why does she have to be like this? Can she not realize that this is not some joke? If he weren’t so angry about her showing up in his home, he might have been more upset at what it meant. 

“Nathan, There are repo men in every city. So, tell me, Nathan, why you really came to see me.”

She is standing dangerously close to him now and yet she still feels so far away from him. He can’t quite reach her and he doesn’t know if it is because they haven’t  _ really _ seen each other in so long or just because she looks so different; all dolled up, alien eyes. But her face, it’s still the same as the shy blind girl Marni had introduced him to so many decades ago.

“FINE! I’LL PAY YOUR DEBT MYSELF!” That ought to solve it, all of it. If he pays her debt, he won’t have to repossess her eyes either. 

“ _And I’ll refuse_. Now, what is this about?”

“IT’S A DEBT, MAG! IT’S NOT A GIFT!”

“I know that.”

It infuriates him that she will not let him help. It’s like she doesn’t want him to, like she doesn’t want to survive this. If only she knew who she had in front of her, what monster-

“REPOSSESSIONS ARE DANGEROUS!”

“I KNOW!” she retorts in an equally raised voice, finding herself surprised at how her guards haven’t stormed in yet at the ruckus, and how his hands are balled into fists, shaking at his sides.

“IF NOT FOR ME, MAG, FOR SHILO THEN!” His voice cracks, and breaks. “Mag, listen to me! Please! Maggie?!!”

Mag, though her gaze seems soft, is steadfast. She is not budging and he knows this. No matter how hard he pleads to let him help her, she knows something is in the air. He comes to the conclusion that he has no choice but to tell her. To confess, get her to run away from him by telling the truth. Perhaps, even though he really does not want to, that will spur her into leaving.

“ _ THEY GAVE ME THE ASSIGNMENT! _ ”

The scene comes to a screeching halt. Nathan crumbles in front of her and cannot even look at her, his voice echoing with a sense of finality. He misses the glance of sadness, concern and pity, genuine emotion that passes over Mag’s face. Her mouth agape, eyebrows furrowed together in pain. The thought of how much he’s truly changed, what this hellhole of a world had turned him into, setting in. Truly.

“They gave me the assignment.”

Mag swallows deeply and collects herself, kneeling in front of him, at eye-level. She dare not reach out to him, in fear that he might shut her out as he had done before. “I’ve made my peace, I hold no grudge. While Shilo sleeps, you’ll have to choose. But, what will you choose?”

Where Mag is calm, Nathan is clearly overwhelmed. Of course, she is terrified, to have her fate confront her in such a manner but it is the way of things. Nothing is ever predictable. Nathan mutters something unintelligible, something she cannot understand despite her keen hearing; but it becomes clear soon enough.

“I cannot do this job.”

Mag smiles softly at him then, as he meets her eyes. Those damned eyes, cursed pieces of metal. Her smile is not at all to mock him, it is that of a mother. Encouraging, understanding and so genuine. There is pity there and while Nathan really doesn’t want pity, he also knows that Mag will be as she is. She’d always been empathic.

“Yes, you can, if you choose to. But the choice is yours, what will you choose?”

It is then that his eyes fall downward, to her hands, folded in her lap. Sharp metal claws protruding from both index fingers. Mag can not possibly be this calm, so seemingly unbothered by what is about to happen to her, unwilling to accept any assistance offered, unless she has already made up her mind. Knowing how smart she is, she probably already had the minute she told Rotti that she wants to stop singing, unlock her shackles, fly away from her gilded cage. Mag knows she won’t make it past the garden, there’s no birds in the city. They don’t live outside of their barred confines.

She is not telling him outright but the implication is enough.

“Maggie…”

Her eyes twitch. Nathan recognizes this as the need to cry but he knows she can not. GeneCo’s digital corneas come with the removal of one’s tear ducts, both to protect the organ and to make a person more inhumane. Cruel in every which way, much like the company that supplies them.

Mag takes a deep breath and asks him again what he will choose, she is really leaving this up to him. She slightly prompts him, moving her hands apart and toward his own. Before he has conscious control of his actions again, fighting with the monster inside of him telling him that now is as good a chance as he’s ever going to get, his fingers have already folded around Mag’s much smaller hands. He’s raised them to hover between their chests.

He glances at the claws and hesitates. Either he does it or she will, now or a few hours from now. The Repo Man in him muses that even if he does it now, it will look like she did it herself. The blood will be on her own hands, Shilo will learn of it that way. He won’t have killed his daughter’s god-mother. He won’t have to tell her. She doesn’t have to know. What is one more lie? One more… death?

A sharp inhale, and a shallow exhale. Mag’s chest rises as her lips twitch upward in a smile, it is twisted but deep down Nathan understands. He can’t tear his gaze away from her as they dig the claws in, flesh moving aside easily as the digital cornea’s come undone.

A river of crimson spills from her eye sockets, her head falls back and her hands go slack in his. He lets them go and they fall by her sides. Her breathing is shallow and barely audible as they sit there together in silence. The light of her vanity casting a halo around her from behind, she almost looks like a saint. It’s bloody poetic. He hates it. 

Taking Mag by the shoulders he helps her lay down, it dawns on him then as he places her on the ground what he has just done to her; what she’s helped him do. He cannot stay, he cannot bear to look at her. 

So Nathan leaves, turning off the lights of her vanity as he stands, casting her body in darkness.

He won’t tell Rotti. The man himself will find out when his prized songbird is late for her show. He would not do this job so for all that he is concerned, he has not. 

Mag had done it for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it or... cried about it! It's all a bit sad, isn't it? Sorry if it is a bit out of character, working the stage versions of the characters into the characters you see in the movie was challenging to say the least!
> 
> The dialogue from the beginning up to where Mag asks Nathan what he will choose is from the Original 2002 stage play, which you can read here if you're interested: https://web.archive.org/web/20030719150822/http://www.repoopera.com:80/tier_one/libretto_IE.asp
> 
> Please let me know what you think!


End file.
